I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve conquered the potty. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a few months since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a daytime accident, and even a few weeks since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a nighttime accident (but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still in pull-ups overnight, just in case.)<\/p>\n
Rather than rest on our laurels, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve moved on to conquer the next parenting hurdle, which I see as even more insurmountable: how to get Tristan to sit still at the dinner table.<\/p>\n
Does anyone else have this problem? It seems to be getting worse instead of better. For a while, I was worried about hyperactivity and ADHD and all the other nasty things they accuse rambunctious young boys of having, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more than capable of sitting for 30 minutes or more to do a puzzle or read a book or play with his trains. Or, ahem, watch TV. <\/p>\n
The dinner table, however, is another matter entirely. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve even given up on worrying about what he eats. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll put out a little bit of whatever the rest of us are eating for him, but also some peanut butter on pitas or apple slices or whatever else I know he will eat so at least he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s getting something nutritious. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure his palate will expand over time if we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t nag him about it.<\/p>\n
But no matter whether he likes what we’re having or not, he will not sit for more than five minutes at the table. He gets on his chair, wiggles off it, tips it sideways. He reaches out and leans on the highchair and pesters his brother, and he tries to dangle off of Beloved\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arm or crawl into his lap. (He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 38 lbs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of preschooler to have dangling off your forking arm!)<\/p>\n
It has denigrated to the point where he just stands at the table, crams a few bites into his mouth, dances away, comes back, pesters someone, eats another bite, rattles his silverware, wiggles on and off the chair\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you can see how it would become a little tiresome. <\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to decide if I want to wage this war. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tried the usual array of persuasive techniques, from pleading to cajoling to moral imperative to outright threat. Beloved has threatened to use his belt to tie Tristan to his chair, which I have some reservations about. (Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t call child protective services just yet.) None of it seems to be incredibly effective and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m frankly tired of arguing my way through dinner every. single. night.<\/p>\n
My ongoing fear is the same one that underlies all my parenting anxiety \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fix\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it now, are we stuck with this behaviour forever? Or should I chill, call this a phase, and hope it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a short one.<\/p>\n
Any suggestions? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking Velcro pants and seat cushions\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve conquered the potty. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a few months since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a daytime accident, and even a few weeks since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a nighttime accident (but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still in pull-ups overnight, just in case.) Rather than rest on our laurels, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve moved on to conquer the next parenting … Continue reading “Parental anxiety of the week – the dinner table”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}